Going for a new computer - please, some help will be cool

[Nestor]

Switched STDM connection into the cards, same message… it seems that definitely, the cable is broken. I know it will take forever to get a new cable here, maybe I’m wrong, but these kind of connections do not seem to be very common place in the market.

I have no idea about what kind of tools I have to use to do a cable myself, but I will try to switch the connectors to a different place of the cable itself. I will use the very same elements, and try to reconstruct a cable with two connections, wish me luck.

[Nestor]

I have cut and rebuild the cable entirely, it is very easy, but instate of doing a three card cable, I did a two connections one. Well…, I came with the same last message:

Pulsar (ID 1) does not seem to have a STDMA connection to the other boards.
Please check the STDM cables.

I am starting to assume that one of the cards has a problem connecting to the other, something broken, I don’t know. It is difficult for a cable to be broken inside, just like that, this cables never move in a case, so it is rare for them to be cut inside. Connections have been properly pushed so to pierce every wire, so it should be fine, but cards do not communicate one another.

Mmmmm, what to do now? Mmmm, don’t know… I will observe everything in detail, and see what is going on again, I will dismantle the STDM again, and check if there is good connection or not, at least I will get out of this doubt.

[Nestor]

I am very happy! Both Pulsar cards are finally connected correctly through the new STDM cable!

The problem was that I assumed, too quickly, that these little plastic wires would be pierced with the load of my hands pressing hard onto them, but I was wrong, you need more than just pressure, the resistance of all this plastic into these small and hard pins is pretty important. Instated, I used a screwdriver and pushed with care every piece of plastic recovering each of the wires, and with this method, gently they started to be pierced so the pins started to actually traverse through and touch the wires as needed.

With the old three pieces STDM I build a two STDM cable connection, connected, and here I am, for the first time in my life, with double the power. For me is amazing. For you guys, having 25 or 45 DSP chips, it’s a joke, but in life, everything is a matter of perspectives. My perspective is very powerful. I will be doing tests, hopefully soon, but my occupations do not let me that much free time, the year is already starting.

[garyb]

i'm glad you made it happen!

[Nestor]

It was very simple actually, I thought it was difficult to do one of those cables, but it is so simple. I think the screwdriver method should be taken here, for those not having the proper tools either.

Well, I'm looking foward to try the system and see how it works, fine tune the PCI performance if needed and get to work.

[tlaskows]

Aye,

I've had problems when using cheap edge connectors on these. I have 5 of these cables. They all work, but I used quality 3M connectors.

-Tom

[Nestor]

It is the first time I see those, so I don't know if they are good or bad, but they were a gift, so they are "good" in nature... They seem to be ok, it was the cable that was really hard to pierce.

I am doing the basic system tweaks, which in Win 7 are very similar in fact, to XP, except for some special registry things.

I have PCI master overflow, and it makes no sense. It may happen with any device regardless of its zise, it just pops up and I don't really know the reason yet, it says:

PCI-Master-Overflow!
PCI capacity limit reached.
If this message continues to reappear, please consult the Support section of the manual for advice on how to handle this problem.
Choose cancel to change the project before reselecting the sample frequency in the sample rate settings.

Well, I remember in the Z we have spoken millions of times about this problem, but so many years ago, that I don't remember. In fact, in my former Win XP machine, I never had this problem, it was really stable, unless I would load to the limit the 4 DSP chips.

I will now check the manual, as suggested by the message itself, and see if I can solve the problem through these instructions.

[garyb]

the manual won't help.

the first gen cards do sometimes have problems with newer motherboards, but i would expect them to be usable. how many masterverbs? what devices are there sharing irqs with the cards?

[Nestor]

I will post about the IRQ another day, it is really late, and I have to go to bed.

I have loaded the bervs anyway, with the following results

With MasterVerb Classic I arrived to load 6 of them, but with the 6th the PCI overflow message would keep showing up over and over again, so I should say I could load up to 5 perhaps?

With MasterVerb Pro, up to 9 instances, which has surprised me because they are supposed to be heavier than Classical bervs I think.

Then with the normal MasterVerb, I could load up to 6 but with PCI overflow coming up every minute or so, so I guess this is also 5.

Definetely, they are perfectly usable, the only bother is that you have to be doing, now and then, one more click to tell the card to try again, and that's it, not a big deal.

[Nestor]

I have tested my system, and for audio purposes it is a very good system. The CPU came to be an exceptionally good one, lucky me, in single thread bench, it gives from 3 to 7 points over the general database, and so it is a particularly fast one. Not that much in multithread apps, being average.

I recommend you to test your system SPECIFICALLY for DAW purposes through this little free application developed for DAW systems called DPC Latency Checker V1.4.0:

http://www.thesycon.de/eng/home.shtml

Download and run it, it is self-explanatory so simple it is, it will show you which is the latency of your system to handle audio in real time.

Fortunately, this app informs me that the system has very low latency in general, and it is suitable for real-time streaming of audio and video without drop-outs.

Sorry, forgot to ask: So, do I have a good number of master-verbs?

[garyb]

masterverbs?
yes and no.
yes, it's about right for Pulsar1s, no it's not nearly as good as the 10-14 that second generation cards would give.

[Nestor]

I am posting here all the information I could find in the “System Information” tab, about any of the two Pulsar cards appearing:

Hardware Resources
- Conflicts/Sharing
Memory Address 0xF6800000-0xF6BFFFFF Sonic Core Pulsar
Memory Address 0xF6800000-0xF6BFFFFF Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E
Memory Address 0xF6800000-0xF6BFFFFF Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 8C96


IRQ 16 Sonic Core Pulsar
IRQ 16 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 8C90
IRQ 16 Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
IRQ 16 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti
IRQ 16 High Definition Audio Controller


IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 8C96
IRQ 19 Sonic Core Pulsar


Forced Hardware
(Nothing here)



IRQs:
IRQ 16 Sonic Core Pulsar OK
IRQ 16 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 8C90 OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01 OK
IRQ 16 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti OK
IRQ 16 High Definition Audio Controller OK



IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 8C96 OK
IRQ 19 Sonic Core Pulsar OK



Memory:
0xF6800000-0xF6BFFFFF Sonic Core Pulsar OK
0xF6C00000-0xF6FFFFFF Sonic Core Pulsar OK



Sound Devices:
Name Sonic Core Pulsar
Manufacturer Sonic Core GmbH
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_14B5&DEV_0300&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_01\5&274A348D&0&0800E3
Memory Address 0xF6800000-0xF6BFFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 16
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\scscope.sys (5.0.0.42, 209,92 KB (214.960 bytes), 04/12/2015 18:21)

Name NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10DE&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_19DA288A&REV_1001\5&38D8E413&0&0001
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvhda64v.sys (1.3.32.1, 192,78 KB (197.408 bytes), 03/12/2015 22:59)

Name Realtek High Definition Audio
Manufacturer Realtek
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0900&SUBSYS_1458A182&REV_1000\4&42F4E46&0&0201
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\rtkvhd64.sys (6.0.1.7256, 3,79 MB (3.977.944 bytes), 03/12/2015 22:18)

Name Intel(R) Display Audio
Manufacturer Intel(R) Corporation
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8086&DEV_2807&SUBSYS_80860101&REV_1000\4&1793E418&0&0001
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\intcdaud.sys (6.16.0.3137, 439,96 KB (450.520 bytes), 03/12/2015 22:17)

Name NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Status OK
PNP Device ID ROOT\UNNAMED_DEVICE\0000
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvvad64v.sys (1.2.25.0, 37,16 KB (38.048 bytes), 03/12/2015 22:59)

Name Sonic Core Pulsar
Manufacturer Sonic Core GmbH
Status OK
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_14B5&DEV_0300&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_01\5&274A348D&0&0000E3
Memory Address 0xF6C00000-0xF6FFFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 19
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\scscope.sys (5.0.0.42, 209,92 KB (214.960 bytes), 04/12/2015 18:21)



Problem Devices:
(Nothing here)

[Nestor]

masterverbs?
yes and no.
yes, it's about right for Pulsar1s, no it's not nearly as good as the 10-14 that second generation cards would give.

thanks Gary

[Nestor]

Just to try, I can tell you now I could load all single devices in the synth, samples and plugins categories, even the heavy reverbs would load without problem.

[Nestor]

Do you guys think, based on the information I have posted above, that I may have an IRQ conflict of any kind?

[tlaskows]

Unlikely...

If you have an old card in there, youre good if you get 6 masterverbs.

I can only get 10 on the new cards.

[Nestor]

Yes, but remember they are two Pulsar I cards, so 8 DSP chips, that's why I wonder, and because of the PCI overflow message that comes now and then when loading devices.

[tlaskows]

Oh, sorry didn't read that part.

I don't think IRQ sharing is a problem. I believe Windows has been doing this for a long time like since plug and pray.

It looks like one of your cards is shared with the USB controller, but you need USB.

What device is giving you issues?

I can load anything just fine unless I set it at 96k then pretty much nothing loads.

I did not even mess around with the IRQs, I don't think you can change them. Everything is automatic/shared now.

I have pretty much everything enabled on my motherboard. Maybe except the onboard audio, I cannot remember.

I can show you my IRQ list.

Let me have a try.

Cheers,

-Tom

[tlaskows]

Ahh, I just noticed. Your PCI-e bus is shared with the Pulsar. If you have a fancy video card, this may be a problem. I am not sure :/

-Tom

[tlaskows]

Here's my IRQ info. As you can see stuff is shared. But I can max out 45 DSPs with no problem and everything works fine.

System Information report written at: 01/09/16 13:14:42
System Name: MUSIC-PC
[Conflicts/Sharing]

Resource Device
Memory Address 0xF5400000-0xF5FFFFFF Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E
Memory Address 0xF5400000-0xF5FFFFFF Sonic Core Scope
Memory Address 0xF5400000-0xF5FFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge

I/O Port 0x00000000-0x0000001F Direct memory access controller
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x0000001F PCI bus

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

I/O Port 0x00000065-0x0000006F Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x00000065-0x0000006F Motherboard resources

I/O Port 0x00000070-0x00000077 System CMOS/real time clock
I/O Port 0x00000070-0x00000077 Motherboard resources

I/O Port 0x000004D0-0x000004D1 Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x000004D0-0x000004D1 Programmable interrupt controller

Memory Address 0xF2000000-0xF50FFFFF Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
Memory Address 0xF2000000-0xF50FFFFF NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

I/O Port 0x0000E000-0x0000EFFF Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
I/O Port 0x0000E000-0x0000EFFF NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

Memory Address 0xFF000000-0xFFFFFFFF Motherboard resources
Memory Address 0xFF000000-0xFFFFFFFF Intel(R) 82802 Firmware Hub Device

Memory Address 0xF6000000-0xF6000FFF Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Memory Address 0xF6000000-0xF6000FFF Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series PCI Express Root Port #3 - 8C14

IRQ 16 Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
IRQ 16 Intel(R) Management Engine Interface
IRQ 16 Sonic Core Scope
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series PCI Express Root Port #1 - 8C10

Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xE0003FFF Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xE0003FFF Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series PCI Express Root Port #3 - 8C14

IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E
IRQ 19 Sonic Core Scope
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series SATA AHCI Controller - 8C02
IRQ 19 PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xDFFFFFFF Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xDFFFFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xDFFFFFFF NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller - 0C01
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

I/O Port 0x00000080-0x00000080 Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x00000080-0x00000080 Motherboard resources

I/O Port 0x0000FFFF-0x0000FFFF Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x0000FFFF-0x0000FFFF Motherboard resources
I/O Port 0x0000FFFF-0x0000FFFF Motherboard resources

I/O Port 0x0000D000-0x0000D0FF Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
I/O Port 0x0000D000-0x0000D0FF Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series PCI Express Root Port #3 - 8C14